Cabinet asked to bring forward Council Housing changes to April 2026

At a meeting on Thursday 12 August, Cheshire West and Chester Council’s Cabinet will decide whether to bring the management of Council Housing back into the Council from 1 April 2026, instead of at the end of its current contract in June 2027.
Last month, Cabinet decided to bring the management of Council Housing back into the Council. Cabinet also approved recommendations for future arrangements for other housing services currently delivered by its current provider, ForHousing.
The Council owns 5,300 homes in the borough, mainly in the areas of Ellesmere Port, Neston and Winsford. These homes are currently managed and maintained on behalf of the Council by ForHousing. ForHousing also run the Council’s homelessness support service (branded as forfutures), home improvement agency (branded as HomeKey+), and the leasing of the Council’s affordable homes which sit in a separate Housing Investment Account.
In anticipation of the contract ending, and against a background of significant changes in the housing landscape, last year the Council asked tenants for their views on how they would like their homes to be managed in the future. This consultation saw 75% of respondents saying that they would like the Council’s homes to be owned and managed by the Council, with repairs and maintenance delivered by an external specialist contractor.
Changes, including new regulatory requirements introduced since the contract first started in 2017, have led to an increase in both the number and cost of day-to-day repairs and maintenance issues reported. ForHousing have informed the Council that they do not believe they can fully maintain services over the remaining contract term until June 2027. As a result, the provider has indicated its intention to end the current contract by no later than 31 March 2026.
Following last month’s decision to bring services back into the Council, discussions with the provider about future delivery arrangements have already started and both the Council and ForHousing are committed to continuing to work together on the transitional arrangements to minimise the disruption to tenants and residents.
This should provide long-term stability for tenants and give the Council direct control of service delivery to ensure it meets regulatory standards and provide a more flexible and responsive service for our tenants. This approach will also benefit from the expertise and experience of external contractors for physical building works.
The Council will also manage improvements and adaptations to homes through the Home Improvement Agency, with physical works completed by external contractors. The Council’s affordable homes that sit in the Housing Investment Account will be leased by the Council to an external registered provider.
Homelessness Support Services for Temporary Accommodation, Out of Hours homelessness statutory duty services, the Supported accommodation gateway, homelessness prevention services, advice and information and tenancy support will also be delivered by the Council, giving the Council more control over improving outcomes for vulnerable people and better aligning these services with the homeless prevention services already delivered in-house. Homelessness Support Services for young people rough sleeping and supported accommodation will be delivered by the expertise of external specialist providers.
Tenants and leaseholders told us loud and clear that they would like the Council, rather than an external provider, to deliver housing services for them. We’ve listened hard, and we are acting upon what they have told us. We now have the opportunity to deliver a housing model going forward that brings the Council closer to our residents earlier than we originally anticipated. Given the changed housing environment, to require the current provider to continue delivering services until 2027 risks a decline in quality for our tenants. Because of that, we need to take action now to protect these services. Our tenants will always remain our priority, and we will be working hard with ForHousing to ensure that any disruption is kept to a minimum. Bringing these services back into the Council in a shorter time frame will be challenging, but having closely assessed our options and discussed this with our provider, we are certain that this will best serve tenants, homeless people and others accessing our housing services with a modern, fit-for-purpose service.
Current arrangements for contacting ForHousing, forfutures, HomeKey+ and reporting repairs or issues will continue until the contract ends. More information will be made available closer to the time to let residents know of any changes on how to contact the new Council service.
To report repairs or issues, please continue to do so by contacting:
Telephone: 0300 123 5522
Email: hello@forhousing.co.uk
Online: